human folly

https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-bad-for Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

The post goes on to, correctly, point out that various ChatGPT causes climate change arguments are so wrong as to be ignored. The energy requirements are still so small as to be ignorable, compared to the output product.

One "ChatGPT query" consumes 3 Watt-hours. This is about 30 seconds of production from one solar panel, 3 minutes of energy to run one television, or using your phone for 5 minutes.

The math shows there isn't an issue here.

Also, the cost of LLMs includes the cost of the energy. When you are spending 1/100th of a cent on a query, you can be fairly confident it is not "destroying the environment".

For the various "o3" tests that supposedly cost thousands of dollars per query, that is less clear. But those tests are, obviously, ridiculous.